Guest editors: Dr. Ursa Komac and Dr. Milica Muminovic, University of Canberra, Australia.

Not until the rise of modern industrial city in the mid-nineteenth century did the problem of housing become a serious issue for planners, architects, social reformers and state officials. With the divide between the city and country, the rise of the Metropolis and its subsequent transmutation into the Megalopolis put pressure on governmental agencies to establish housing policies to accommodate unprecedented urban migrations, and residual regional populations. The ideals underpinning early modernist architects’ concern with social housing projects and its relationship with the city were met with obstacles or ended up as a failure when transformed into reality. With the advent of globalization, the fluidity of capital investment and mass migration compromised the project of social housing together with its urbanity. The neo-liberal political order is unable to meet the crisis that is taking place in the margin of every megalopolis around the world. The essential role of social housing in the city keeps haunting architects, planners, governments and communities. In this situation, the relationship between the city, urbanity, social housing and quality of life are becoming fundamental issues for an increasing number of professions in the 21st century.

We invite architects, urban and regional planners, public intellectuals, cultural critics, economists, political philosophers, artists, sociologists, anthropologists, and public administrators to critically re-visit the theoretical-historical question of social housing and its role in contemporary urban and regional development.

Suggested themes for papers include, but are not exclusive to:  Relationships between housing and: typology, morphology, history, public life, public space, everyday ordinary space, urbanity, public-private, dwelling, sustainability, ethics, and place identity.